Text Size

“I am busy with my family,” Gulalet replied. “I swear I don’t understand this business of Taliban. I am a farmer; this is the first time I am detained.”

Gulalet was then asked questions about his neighbors — which he said he couldn’t answer because he doesn’t really know them. Then an officer assigned to act as his “personal representative” stood up.

“How have you been treated here?” the soldier asked.

“I’ve been treated very well,” Gulalet answered.

His personal representative had no further questions.

This is what passes for justice at the U.S. prison at Bagram. Though the detainee can make a statement, he is not represented by a lawyer and usually cannot see much of the evidence against him — because it’s classified. Though the review board can recommend his release, the commander of the detention facility can ignore that recommendation.

Many defense lawyers and former detainees I interviewed in Afghanistan said that, frequently, the classified “evidence” against a detainee consists of a false accusation made by an enemy of the detainee or his family — often based on a tribal feud or land dispute.

By not knowing the exact charges, or who made them, and unable to cross-examine the incriminating witness, the detainee cannot fully defend himself.

Meanwhile, the prisoner has no lawyer, only a “personal representative” — a uniformed U.S. soldier, who the detainee has little reason to trust. In the cases I observed, the personal representative asked a few questions at most, usually with no evident aim. One said nothing.

Under international law, a detainee in the Afghan armed conflict has the right to challenge the grounds for his detention to an impartial body with authority to enter final decisions on continued detention or release. The Detainee Review Board process does not meet that standard.

To comply with minimum international standards of due process, the U.S. government should provide detainees with lawyers trained to challenge the government’s evidence.

The military also needs to work harder to declassify the evidence presented or to provide summaries of classified evidence or redacted versions of documents where declassification is not possible.

As the situation stands now, Afghans and others are being arrested and held for years in U.S. custody without knowing why. Their families, friends and neighbors don’t know why, either.

As various recently released detainees told me repeatedly, this is generating growing animosity against the United States military.

Protesters around the world are now objecting to arbitrary detentions by oppressive governments. The United States and President Barack Obama are standing up for the protesters and their calls for democracy — seeking to be on the right side of history. And given the growing insurgency in Afghanistan and its eagerness to portray U.S. actions in a negative light, the Obama administration should be careful to deny it that opportunity.

Now is the time for Washington to lead by example and to provide a more fair and transparent process for its own military detainees in Afghanistan.

Daphne Eviatar is a senior associate in the law and security program of Human Rights First, which has been monitoring U.S. military detention practices since 2002.

American diplomat Michael Posner, on a taxpayer subsidized trip to Red China.... supposedly representing the best interests of Americans, proactively brought up the Arizona law.... “early and often” ...as an issue of “discrimination or potential discrimination” ..

To smear America in front of one of the world’s leading repressive regimes....China.

That same Posner who founded ....Humane Rights First ...and is now in the State Department.

what about blacks in the 60s, when they marched for their voting rights in birmhingham they were sprayed with high pressure waterhoses, powerfull enough to peel the bark of trees and push people down, and had attack dogs sicked upon them. the birhimingham police used fire hoses and attack dogs on people just wanting their right to vote.

what about blacks in the 60s, when they marched for their voting rights in birmhingham they were sprayed with high pressure waterhoses, powerfull enough to peel the bark of trees and push people down, and had attack dogs sicked upon them. the birhimingham police used fire hoses and attack dogs on people just wanting their right to vote.

what about blacks in the 60s, when they marched for their voting rights in birmhingham they were sprayed with high pressure waterhoses, powerfull enough to peel the bark of trees and push people down, and had attack dogs sicked upon them. the birhimingham police used fire hoses and attack dogs on people just wanting their right to vote.

what about abu gharaiab, or were those pictures faked?

what about guantamino and the enhanced interigation?

I really find it strange that when our soldiers are killed right out and dragged thought the streets in Somila that is perfectly okay. When the Taliban captures Americans and then shows video with them cutting off their heads, that good too. Not a single word of outrage which includes Human Rights which regular condemns us. I'll not condone Abu Gharaiab or the past enhanced interogations at Gitmo, but they pale beside what is done to our troops and other Americans captured by the bad guys.

The 60's wasn't a good time, but go back another 20 years and you will find out we intered German and Italian POW's here in the states too and for the duration of the war with no rights at all. The North Vietnamese tortured our POWs and held them in solitary confinement and punished them if they talked to each other, but that too is perfectly okay with you. The North Vietnamese killed 30,000 civilians when they capture Hue in 68, but it was My Lai that you people worried about. 30,000 vs 100 or there abouts, I'll not defend Cally as he should have been hung, but not a peep about the NVA killing 30,000. You guys ignored the killing fields where Pol Pot killed between 2-3 million of his own people, nothing but closed lips, yet you get all upset about some pictures. let's see, 2-3 million people killed vs. some pictures and in the end the pictures are bad and the killing of 2-3 million is good.

I guess it is the same mind set that keeps our nation mum when Iran shoot their demonstrators 2 years ago and again last week, that's okay, nothing from human rights on this either. But Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Bahrain etc, we are all over our allies shouting please don't hurt the protestors while we abet the Iranian government in killing their demonstrators by keeping quiet least we offend them I guess.

Dream on. That will not only not happen, it will not get covered in the press when it does not happen. Besides, where are we going to put these detainees. New England?

The problem with wars of attrition is that they never end. All because the PC crowd says we must not ever have collateral damage, so put the bulleye on your back and go patrol Kabul. It is not a war really, it is a "policing" action, right out of the U.N. manual on how to protect the bad actors at all costs.

Now your going BACK 50 years?....Did not America come out of the dark ages?

How about TODAY....RIGHT NOW.

You are still involved in a war in which the USA killed well over 1/2 a million people, a war against a country that did absolutely nothing against the USA, except have their oil as a national industry instead of farming it out to international corporations.

Sorry, Moosebagger, the US had no treaty calling us to war on behalf of Great Britain, either in WWI or WWII, and in both cases the US government illegally began supporting the Commonwealth with men and materiel while still claiming to be neutral, only being drawn in later.

So lying the US in to war is OK, , war crimes are OK, outing a CIA agent so you can lie the US in to war is OK, billions unaccounted for in Iraq is OK, no bid contracts are OK, because it was a repub that did it, it's OK.